Integrated horn antennas for millimeter-wave applications

Abstract

This paper reviews the development of integrated horn antennas since their introduction in 1987. The integrated horn is fabricated by suspending a dipole antenna on a thin dielectric membrane in a pyramidal cavity etched in silicon. Recent progress resulted in optimized low and high-gain designs with single and double-polarizations for remote-sensing and communication applications. A fullwave analysis technique have resulted in an integrated antenna with performance comparable to that of waveguide-fed corrugated horn antennas. The integrated horn design can be easily extended to large arrays for imaging and phased array applications while still leaving plenty of room for the rf and w processing circuitry. Theoretical and experimental results at microwave frequencies and at 90, 240 and 802 GHz will be presented.